If not abolished

"Your third uncle didn't notice it, right?" Zhu Di said as he glanced towards the door.

Zhu Zhanji almost lost his patience. "Let's not talk about how Third Uncle was frightened by you and couldn't react at all. I can't even guess what happened with his brain."

Zhu Di was relieved when he heard this, and his serious and fierce look just now disappeared completely. "That's fine. Your third uncle is also an elder. If your father hears what you said, he will definitely scold you."

"The grandson will naturally not tell it in front of his father."

Zhu Di was still worried after a while, and asked again: "Would it be bad if I took this matter so lightly?"

Zhu Zhanji thought for a while and said, "This matter can be big or small. There is no real reason in the world that the emperor can be punished the same as the common people. Although the emperor's punishment this time is not too severe, it has made my third uncle lose face in front of his subordinates. He almost beat his son and copied books in the end. It can be considered a big commotion. If others really have opinions, they won't say anything."

Zhu Di thought about what his grandson said. It seemed to make sense, but he felt that he was just making a lot of noise but doing little. "Agui, there is something else behind your words."

"Your Highness has wronged me. I was telling the truth," Zhu Zhanji defended himself.

"You've been tired all day, go to bed early." Zhu Di did not continue the topic.

"Yes, Grandpa Emperor should be settled as soon as possible." Zhu Zhanji bowed and walked out.

The next morning, Zhu Di and Zhu Zhanji officially began to inspect the construction of Beijing. In February, Zhu Di ordered the Minister of Works Song Li and others to start dredging the Huitong River.

At first, Huitong River was just a section of the shipping route from Linqing to Xucheng in Shandong. In the previous dynasty, the river was dug from Anmin Mountain in Dongping to Linqing, diverting water from Dawen River to Jishui River. It was a small part of Wei River and a key section of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was tortuous and used both water and road, which was very inconvenient. In addition, Huitong River was narrow and not deep enough, so it could not bear heavy weight. Therefore, the previous dynasty mainly used sea transportation. In the early Ming Dynasty, the transportation of grain and salaries to Liaodong and Beijing was also carried out by sea. However, in the 24th year of Hongwu, the Yellow River suddenly broke through in Yuanwu, and the flood rushed to the north with silt. One-third of the Huitong River was blocked by silt, and the Grand Canal was interrupted since then. Since then, the river transportation of grain and salaries from the canal to the north has been hindered.

In the early years of Yongle, Zhu Di began to prepare for the relocation of the capital. Because the capital could not be compared with the abundant fish and rice in the south, the first major problem of the relocation was food and fodder. The source of food for Beijing City, in addition to the supply from the counties around Beijing, mainly relied on the supply from Shandong, Henan and southern Hebei. The transportation of this supply required the use of the Wei River. The water-transported grain of the canal was mostly concentrated in the Linqing and Tianjin markets, and then purchased and transported to Beijing by grain merchants.

In order to solve the problem of transporting grain to the north, river and sea transportation were originally planned to be carried out together. However, sea transportation had to prevent pirates and the like, and there was no security guarantee, resulting in great losses. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of Beijing's grain supply after the capital was moved, river transportation was imperative. River transportation was carried out from the Yangtze River and Huaihe River to Yangwu. This project was extremely labor-intensive and resource-intensive.

Pan Shuzheng, the Tongzhi of Jining Prefecture, said to Zhu Di: "The original Huitong River is more than 450 miles long, but only one-third of it is blocked by sludge. It would be more convenient if the silt is cleared away, and there is no need to open a new canal."

Therefore, this year, the Minister of Works Song Li was ordered to go to Huitong River to control the silt, and 300,000 civilians from Shandong, Xuzhou, Yingtian, Zhenjiang and other places were recruited to serve. The main projects include improving the water diversion hub, dredging the waterway, rectifying the dams and sluices, and building more water tanks, some of which can be completed this year.

In addition to maintaining the original water diversion project, he adopted the advice of Bai Ying, an old man from Wenshang who was familiar with the local terrain, and built a new dam on the riverbed of the Wenshui River near Dai Village. He also intercepted the remaining water of the Wenshui River and diverted it to Nanwang and injected it into the Jeju River. With the increase in water volume in the northern section of the Jeju River, the navigability was greatly improved.

Several decades later, people made a more thorough improvement to this water diversion project, that is, they completely abandoned the water diversion facilities of the previous dynasty, diverted all the more abundant Wenshui River to Nanwang for diversion, and built two north-south dams on the riverbed here to facilitate more effective water control. Generally speaking, it is 30% to 70%, with 30% flowing south to Sishui River and 70% flowing north to Yuhe River. People jokingly said: "70% goes to the emperor, and 30% goes to the south of the Yangtze River." But that's another story.

The dredging of the river can be roughly divided into two parts: the first is to re-dig out the section of the river destroyed by the Yellow River flood. The second is to widen the other channels of the Huitong River. In this way, even grain ships with a slightly larger load can pass smoothly.

In his previous life, Zhu Zhanji visited Beijing in the eighth year of Yongle. At that time, the river had not yet been dredged. Unexpectedly, he caught up with it this time. Relying on his memories of his previous life, Zhu Zhanji put forward some of his own opinions.

Zhu Di naturally praised this highly, with an expression that said he was worthy of being my grandson.

In the blink of an eye, more than half a month had passed, and Zhu Di and his entourage were preparing to return to Beijing. These days, Zhu Gaosui behaved well in front of his old father and made his presence felt. Zhu Di had always doted on this youngest son, so Zhu Gaosui was often arrogant because of his doting.

Just before Zhu Di left, someone suddenly reported Prince Zhao to have committed many illegal acts while occupying Beijing.

When Zhu Gaosui heard about this, he knelt down in front of Zhu Di and apologized without saying a word. Zhu Di looked at the report at hand, and every single thing was done by his good son. Zhu Di didn't quite believe it at first, and asked people to investigate the authenticity of these things. It turned out to be very serious. The real situation might be even more serious than this. The most important thing was that Zhu Di's people also found out that his youngest son and the King of Han were suspected of conspiring to seize the throne.

This violated Zhu Di's big taboo. No matter how dissatisfied he was with the crown prince, it was just that emperors since ancient times had been wary of the crown prince as their second-in-command. Since the crown prince had been established, how could he be deposed easily? These people wanted to conspire to seize the throne. If they failed, what else did they want to do then? Would they learn from him and rebel?

It can be said that Zhu Di understood his sons quite well. More than ten years later, these two sons rebelled against their nephew, but they failed.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this time Zhu Gaosui could not escape. He also knew that Zhu Di was really angry, so he just knelt there and apologized without making any excuses. Zhu Di got angry when he saw him like this, so he stood up and walked out and kicked him.

Zhu Zhanji thought to himself, it turns out that this habit of kicking people is hereditary.

After Zhu Di punished Zhu Gaosui, he immediately executed his chief secretary Gu Sheng and wanted to strip Zhu Gaosui of his official hat and robes. Zhu Gaosui was spared only because Zhu Zhanji pleaded for him.

Zhu Di later personally selected Zhao Hengdao, the director of the Imperial College, and Dong Zizhuang as the chief secretary to tutor him.